Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill

2011Directed by Dennis Dugan

Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries…how did this movie get made???

Oh, boy.

Do you love jokes about explosive diarrhea? Do you love seeing great actors slumming it in a film where they’re sexually obsessed with a man in drag? Do you live films that give characters quirks instead of doing any characterization at all?

Fictitious depiction of a Jack and Jill audience…

Finally, I can hush the naysayers who keep saying “nay” when I try to explain that just because I’ve sold out and get free movie passes and dump trucks filled with money and drugs and keep giving all those films positive reviews, that I’m not a shill. Because there is no way in Hell that Jack and Jill will get a positive review, because the dump truck was three minutes late! And also pretend I worked a “Knights who say ‘Ni'” joke in there that was actually funny, unlike every other reference to the Knights who say “Ni” ever. Even this one.

Actual depiction of a Jack and Jill audience…

Jack and Jill sucks. I can’t say going into this one I had much high hopes. But I was wishing for maybe something passable. I like some of Sandler’s older work, but I can’t think of anything lately he’s done that I’ve even bothered with. Parts of Jack and Jill seem like they’re trying to ape the older style, but the jokes just do not work. A homeless guy randomly for Thanksgiving dinner, so he can say wacky things. A kid who tapes things to himself, because that is wacky. A bird that says random phrases, because it’s wacky. A daughter who is always in a costume and has a doll that is always in an identical costume…wacky! All seem like they would be funny, but no. Luckily, there are fart jokes to fall back on! Those work…if you’re high on wacky-tabacky! Which probably means you wandered into the wrong theater when trying to check out Harold and Kumar 3.

She’s totally not crazy. Now can I have my dog back unharmed, Scientologists?

Jack (Adam Sandler) – Jack is an ad executive and a jerk, who will randomly do something sort of kind just as the audience is turning against him.

Jill (Adam Sandler) – Jill is his twin sister who is only slightly annoying. But the movie reassures us over and over that she’s the most annoying thing ever, despite evidence to the contrary.

Jack and Jill treats women like it does to the audience

The plot is Jack has a twin sister named Jill who comes to visit because she’s lonely, and ends up staying longer because she’s lonely. Wacky things happen. Jack is annoyed and yells at her, then Jill runs off and cries and he has to apologize. This repeats for 90 minutes, except for when Al Pacino shows up and outacts both Adam Sandlers, despite the fact he’s sleepwalking through his role.

Sandler is much more charismatic as Jill than he ever is as Jack. Jack just comes off as a complete jerk, while Jill is more of a well-meaning but weird girl. Jack screams, yells, and treats everyone like crap. We haven’t even meet Jill yet, and Jack already badmouths her and insults her in their first scene together. Jill hadn’t even had a chance to do anything annoying (except showing up at the airport early, but is that really so annoying you’ll start screaming at your twin sister?) Jack continues to be a jerk to her the entire film until the grand finale, but as we’ve already seen him apologize to her a hundred times, one more apology doesn’t really cut the mustard to anyone who bothers to think about the premise. The fact that Jill isn’t really that annoying, just ugly (because she’s a dude..see!) is more insulting than anything else. Despite that setup, the film fails on that delivery, because everyone likes Jill even though males are sexually repulsed by her. It’s a weird dichotomy that doesn’t work.

This horse was later shot. In good news, it missed the rest of Jack and Jill!

Truly a non-believer in “show, don’t tell”, the film constantly explains to us as we go that Jill is annoying, but the woman we see on screen seems like she’d be fun to hang around with. In fact, everyone likes Jill except for Jack. His hatred of her becomes irrational. It’s thankfully tempered by the fact she is his sister and he has to show some sort of love, but had she been a cousin Jack would probably be burning her to death in his backyard while marching around chanting in the secret twin language (this is what I suggest we all do with the prints to Jack and Jill!) Jack and Jill constantly explaining to us that Jill is annoying when Jack seems much more awful is evidence that the target audience were people who can’t pick up on human behavior, and must be hand-fed personality traits.

The amazing finale encompasses David Spade in drag having a fight with Adam Sandler in drag. You see, different guys in drag interacting is fun! Well, it was 20 years ago on SNL when both of them did it regularly, but they were with many other young hungry comedians in drag (including the hungriest comedian of them all, Chris Farley!), written by the best comedy minds in the country, and in a skit not lot longer than 7 minutes. That last point is the important one. Had Jack and Jill decided to take its premise and run with it, maybe it would have been better. Dozens of random comedians in drag…for no reason! And female comediennes dressed up as dudes! Total roll reversal! And make every other character a set of twins. Even take the daughter with her doll that has identical outfits and treat them as twins. Just go plain weird. But it doesn’t. Jack and Jill takes the lazy way out. And fails.

Osama bin Getting Paid!

Jack and Jill is awful. It’s one of those films that you’ll scour the reviews to look for great lines where people claim to have contracted all sorts of horrible diseases, physical pain, and mental anguish from watching it. Jack and Jill is even awful for an Adam Sandler film. For a bad Adam Sandler film. It tries so hard to be one of his older films, but fails on every level. Events don’t flow naturally, they’re forced, many by the obvious commercials for products. A good chunk of time is spent on a giant cruise ship with a painfully obvious logo in many shots. After the film, you’ll want to go on vacation, eat donuts, watch the NBA, and drink Pepto-Bismol. Hmmm… I already want to do those things. Atheists will totally love this movie…NOT! I won’t spoil why, but expect hundreds of angry posts across the internet.

There’s celebrities up the wazoo…but they are wasted and rarely given a role that works towards their strengths (Norm Macdonald in a role where he barely talks? Genius!) Katie Holmes is completely useless as Jack’s wife, she seems to exist only as some sort of set decoration because they needed a mom who didn’t have enough of a personality to overshadow 2 Sandlers screeching at himself. They didn’t even give her a quirk like they did for every other character in the film, even people who were in it for one second. Come to think of it, Katie Holmes is perfect as a bland decoration wife, because that’s what she is in real life. Inspired casting. The best ever.

Special effects that were special back when Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills starred in films

Jack and Jill‘s best parts aren’t even Jack and Jill, but the interviews with twins that happen before and after the movie. They show real life interaction between two siblings, something Jack and Jill couldn’t pull off in its wildest dreams. Instead, we get the same guy screeching at himself in slightly different voices, then simultaneous farting. Suck on that, audience! The interviews sort of made me wish I had a twin, but as far as I know, if I had any twins, I reabsorbed their ass in the womb. Stupid twin, I win, you’re now my butt or something. Hopefully the part of my brain storing memories of Jack and Jill is made up of you. On second thought, I don’t want a twin, because they’d be a jerk.

Six Things I’d Rather Do than Watch Jack and Jill Again:
1- Get raped by a bear getting raped by a bigger bear
2- Watch an all-goat cast remake of Jack and Jill – one goat plays both Jack and Jill
3- Buy Dunkin Donuts
4- Watch Asylum’s mockbuster Mega-Jack vs GodJilla
5- Get raped by a tiger getting raped by a bear getting raped by a bigger bear in drag
6- Marry into Scientology

Hey, I was just kidding on that last one! Get out of my house, Tom Cruise! NOOOOOOOOOOoooOOOO!!!!!

Mrs. Mary Lee Mapother
and Mr. Thomas Cruise Mapother III
invite you to join them
in a celebration of love
as their son, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
is united in marriage to
Mr. Tars T. Tarkas
son of Mr. and Mrs. Tars Q. Tarkas
on Friday, the eleventh of November
two thousand and eleven
at five o’clock in the morning
St. Michael’s Church
Orland Park, Illinois

Bring gifts! E-meters a plus.
Check all thetans at the door!

So wacky! Can you feel the wack? Make sure to tell all your friends that Jack and Jill is wack!